Cause and Effect in U.S. Political History from 1790 to 1898 - SAT Subject Test in United States History

Although the Treaty at Ghent was signed in 1814, it still needed to be ratified by Congress; this was done in February of 1815. Still, the Battle of New Orleans, which resulted in an American victory might have been avoided were communications of the era quicker.

Maine, which was then a northern region of Massachusetts, was admitted to the Union as a result of the Missouri Compromise.

Following Nat Turner's slave rebellion, which resulted in the deaths of 55 whites, and no fewer than 100 blacks, there was no largely sympathetic newspaper coverage in the South.

The Emancipation Proclamation freed slaves in the Confederate held states that were rebelling. The border states of Missouri, Kentucky, Delaware, and Maryland were not affected. All Union states had either already freed their slaves, or would do so in separate state and federal actions. Slavery was not actually illegal until the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865, however.

The War of 1812 ended without major gains having been made by either side. In fact, the political and territorial situation after the war was much the same as it was before the war; therefore, it is best considered a stalemate.

Rather than catapulting the Federalist Party to a position of dominance in precipitated their decline—due to the timing of the peace treaty and the Battle of New Orleans—public opinion in America viewed the war as a victory, and the Federalists who had opposed it were disparaged by the American population. Likewise, it very clearly did not result in the decline of the British Empire, which had yet to reach the height of its influence and would not experience decline until after World War Two.

The Republican Party was founded in opposition to slavery and its expansion throughout the United States.

In 1791 Congress passed an excise tax on whiskey at the encouragement of Alexander Hamilton. Many of the frontiersmen, who relied on the sale of whiskey, refused to pay the tax. Hamilton mobilized the militia, and the Whiskey Rebellion died a very quick death. One very important consequence of the Whiskey Rebellion, however, was the complete reversal of popular support in the Western States for the Federalist Party. Instead, they flocked to the Democratic-Republicans and remained largely loyal supporters for several electoral campaigns.

In the Election of 1824 Andrew Jackson garnered the majority of the popular vote, but not an electoral majority. As a result, the case was decided in the House and John Quincy Adams was chosen as President, due in large part to Henry Clay throwing his support behind Adams’ campaign. Adams promptly appointed Henry Clay to the position of Secretary of State. Jackson cried foul, declaring a “corrupt bargain” had been struck, and he issued a massive propaganda response. By the time of the election of 1828 the Democratic-Republican Party had all but fractured and this worked to Jackson’s advantage. He gained full support of the new Democratic Party. Additionally, it is important to understand that the suffrage rights of several western states had changed dramatically over the last decade and by the election of 1828, a much higher percentage of the “common man” had a direct say in the electoral process. Finally, Jackson was deeply popular in the South and the West for his role in the War of 1812 and for his standing as a man taken from their own ranks.

The ardent abolitionist John Brown led an attack on the Federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia) on October 16, 1859, with the hopes of gaining weapons and support for a widespread slave uprising. In actual fact, Brown's 20 men were quickly counterattacked by local militia, and U.S. troops under Colonel Robert E. Lee managed to kill 10 of Brown's men (including two sons) and capture Brown. Brown was hanged on December 2, 1859, but the event stirred passions North and South regarding issues of slavery. In late December, South Carolina became the first state to secede from the Union, which helped the country on the road to Civil War.

John Wilkes Booth assassinated Lincoln on April 15, 1865, less than a week after Robert E. Lee surrendered his Confederate Army to Union General Ulysses S. Grant, and nearly three weeks after the fall of the Confederate capital at Richmond, VA. Booth was an ardent Southern supporter and white supremacist who believed Lincoln was a tyrant and race traitor. Booth developed a conspiracy to kill not only Lincoln, but Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State Edwin Stanton as well. Neither of those men were killed, as Johnson's assassin backed out and Stanton's was stopped by the Secretary's family. Booth managed to escape, but was instantly villified; he was tracked down by Union troops less than two weeks later. Booth refused to surrender and was shot by a Union soldier.

At the end of the Spanish-American War, the United States gained territory in the Caribbean and the Philippines. Though the United States refused to name these territories as colonies, they essentially treated them as such. Thus joining the Imperialist nations.

The Panic of 1893 was a widespread economic depression, largely coming on the heels of railroad over speculation and general over investment by speculators. Due to the closing of banks and railroads, as well as problems with the currency, the Populist Party's constant attacks against big business, railroads, and the gold standard gained a great deal of traction.

In their campaign for the Senate in 1858, the incumbent Democrat Stephen Douglas and Republican challenger Abraham Lincoln conducted seven extended debates in different Illinois towns. The topics were their differences over slavery, with Douglas having long championed Popular Sovereignty, the idea a new state could vote on whether to be allow slavery, and Lincoln arguing that slavery should be contained in the places where it existed. Douglas won the Senatorial election, but Lincoln's profile was raised so much nationally he was able to win the Republican Nomination and then the Presidency in 1860.

Beginning in the late nineteenth century, the federal government began initiating a policy of placing Native American tribes on reservations, a process accelerated by the passage of the Dawes Act in 1887. The Dawes Act had a stated goal of integrating Native American populations into American society, but largely it had the opposite effect. Thanks to reservations, Native Americans were separated from society, with Native populations being reduced and restricted to impoverished areas. Frequently, reservationism produced violent reprisals from Native Americans who were being forced into reservations.

The 1876 was conducted in the shadow of Republican Ulysses S. Grant's disastrous second term and the serious economic troubles that accompanied it. The election pitted Republican Governor Rutherford B. Hayes of Ohio against Democratic Governor Samuel J. Tilden of New York. Tilden won the popular vote, but the Electoral College vote was contested. A deal was put in place to elect Hayes, but on the condition that Reconstruction end. This pulled troops out of the former Confederate states, rolling back African-American rights, enforcing a white supremacist order, and enacting Jim Crow Laws.

This, like the “Corrupt Bargain” of 1824, involves a very inflammatory election with backroom dealing. Unfortunately, this requires a foray into political science issues in order to fully understand the history issues at hand. To begin with, remember that we the people do not *technically* elect the President: the Electoral College does. And, in broad strokes, the Secretary of State of each state generally tells the Electoral College how their state voted (that is, for which candidate) by “certifying” the votes for the candidate of popular choice. In other words, if Candidate X won the highest number of votes in California, California’s Secretary of State would “certify” the votes from California for Candidate X, instructing the requisite electors to vote accordingly. In close elections, those certifications can become hot-button issues.

The election of 1876 was incredibly close, with Rutherford B. Hayes, the Republican, facing off against Samuel Tilden, the Democrat. Towards the end of the race, three states had not yet certified their votes for either candidate—Florida, South Carolina, and Louisiana—for a total of 20 “unclaimed” electoral votes. Without getting into needlessly complicated detail, both parties—that is, the Democrats and the Republicans—claimed that the votes were certified for their respective candidate. Thus, the Electoral College was confronted with a set of conflicting votes. In order to discover the winner, Congress decided to establish an “electoral commission” made up of 5 Senators, 5 Representatives, and 5 members of the Supreme Court. All members of the electoral commission voted along party lines, and thus Rutherford B. Hayes “won” the election (by winning the disputed votes). Historians suspect that Hayes engaged in some backroom dealing in order to mollify the Democrats (who were, by all accounts, absolutely livid). In any event, Hayes is elected in 1876 and Reconstructions ends the next year, when he takes office.

This question is fairly difficult in the abstract, but given the answer choices, it is less difficult here. The election of 1876 involved the disputed votes of 3 states, which in total were worth 20 Electoral College votes. They were disputed because both the Democrats and Republicans claimed them—in other words, the Electoral College was confronted with 20 votes, all of which were claimed by BOTH parties. In order to resolve the discrepancy, the government decided to create an “electoral commission” in order to determine which candidate, Tilden or Hayes, actually won the 20 votes.

The Kansas-Nebraska Act led directly to what we now call “Bleeding Kansas.” Basically, because the K-N Act opened up the two territories to popular sovereignty, it invited all of the radicals in from both sides to storm the two territories. Bleeding Kansas was small-scale guerilla warfare in between pro-slavery and anti-slavery forces on the borders of (and within) Kansas, as each faction fought to control Kansas—or at least to have enough of their own within the borders to tip it pro- or anti-slavery.

This is a deceptive question. Although your first instinct is to think that the Emancipation Proclamation immediately freed the slaves, that would be incorrect. The immediate effect of the Proclamation was nothing—the Proclamation was only issued to effect rebellious territories (the Confederacy, essentially). Lincoln, of course, had no power over the Confederacy (it would be like your little cousin/sister/brother telling you to give them $5). That said, the Proclamation basically turned Lincoln’s armies into forces of liberation—wherever they marched and took power, the Proclamation took effect (because it could be enforced at that point).